These are problems with Maven's own integration tests. The ones we use to make sure that changes to a new version of Maven don't break anything that previously worked.

Goals

An IT should be completely self-contained so that the problem can
be understood by looking in one place, in one Maven project.

We should be able to create an Archetype so that users can easily
create ITs for us

The ITs should be in a project of their own so that we can reuse
them across versions of Maven. We could actually run new versions
of integration tests against old versions of Maven. Solution: the
ITs are now in a separate build and it is possible to run them

We should be able to easily integrate the IT into a larger run
where we can use forked or embedded execution.

We should create Archetypes for all categories of problems so
that anyone can generate tests cases for us. Then there is so
much that we can do in terms of automating this process of
checking tests for quality along with the patches.

automate the testing of ITs submitted by users

Each IT should have its own repository if it needs resources from
repository. We can't mess with a users repository when testing.

We need to have a file system based remote repository for testing

We need to standardize on integration testing in general. We have
people going all over the place and it's a disaster.

We have too many IT plugins (3)

We have too many invokers (5)

We have too many verifiers (3)

The ITs should run nicely from an IDE. Solution: this does work
but requires that you run mvn clean resources:testResources first
as the IDE doesn't know how to set that up. Needs to be fully
fixed. But it is much nicer running this stuff in your IDE.

Problems with ITs

Problem

Status

Verifier jar required by the bootstrap requires a special verifier.jar there is no released version of this tool.

The bootstrap now uses Ant and we've gotten rid of a lot of the complexity.

The maven-core-it plugin needs to be decoupled into its separate purposes because there are currently 12 different things going on in the plugin and it would be really confusing for a new user to figure out what's going on in the plugin and how it applies to the integration testing

These have now been broken down into plugins that correspond to their function in the ITs.

it0006 is an integration test for the verifier plugin.

The test has been migrated to the plugin project.

it0013 is an integration test for the Plugin Plugin.

The test has been migrated to the plugin project.

it0014 uses the compiler plugin to test plugin configuration.

The Compiler Plugin has been replaced with an IT plugin.

it0016 is an integration test for the WAR plugin.

The test has been migrated to the plugin project.

it0017 is an integration test for the EJB plugin.

The test has been migrated to the plugin project.

it0018 uses real dependencies to test artifact resolution.

The test has been changed to use dedicated IT artifacts.

it0020 tests beanshell mojo support.

The test has been deleted due to discontinued support for BeanShell-based plugins.

it0024 uses the compiler plugin to test mojo configuration.

The Compiler Plugin has been replaced with an IT plugin.

it0028 uses the compiler plugin to test mojo configuration.

The Compiler Plugin has been replaced with an IT plugin.

it0029 uses the compiler plugin to test for pluginManagement injection of plugin configuration.

The Compiler Plugin has been replaced with an IT plugin.

it0031 uses the Modello Plugin to test plugin prefix resolution.

The Modello Plugin has been replaced with an IT plugin.

it0033 is an integration test for the EAR plugin.

The test has been migrated to the plugin project.

it0043 uses the help plugin to look at the state of the final POM, we should have this built into Maven for testing.

The Help Plugin has been replaced with an IT plugin.

it0047 uses plexus-container-default for testing.

The test has been changed to use dedicated IT artifacts.

it0048 uses the surefire plugin to test default value population for mojo parameters.

The Surefire Plugin has been replaced with an IT plugin.

it0050 is an integration test for the surefire plugin.

The test has been migrated to the plugin project.

it0051 is an integration test for the release plugin.

The test only checks the release profile from the super POM. It has nevertheless been decoupled from production versions of the Source Plugin and Javadoc Plugin.

it0052 is an integration test for the release plugin.

The test only checks the release profile from the super POM. It has nevertheless been decoupled from production versions of the Source Plugin and Javadoc Plugin.

it0054 is an integration test for the resources plugin.

The test has been migrated to the plugin project.

it0055 is an integration test for the compiler plugin.

The test has been migrated to the plugin project.

it0056 uses the compiler plugin to test multiple executions.

The Compiler Plugin has been replaced with an IT plugin.

it0060 uses the compiler plugin to test aggregation of list configuration items when using 'combine.children=append' attribute.

The Compiler Plugin has been replaced with an IT plugin.

it0063 tests JDK 1.4.2 specifics.

The test has been changed to use a platform-independent fake artifact.

it0111 uses the Checkstyle Plugin to test resources provided by extensions. Maybe just delete since it0114 seems to test the same issue?

The test has been deleted as it was an inferior duplicate of it0114.

it0112 uses the PIR Plugin to test extension dependencies.

The test has been rewritten to use IT artifacts/plugins.

it0119 places artifacts in the o.a.m.plugins and o.c.mojo group IDs to test plugin prefix order instead of using a replacement settings file and subgroups of o.a.m.its as it should.

Part of the IT is testing the default plugin groups which are burried as constants in maven-core. There is no other way of testing these defaults as by installing test plugins into these default groups. The only means to avoid messing with the user's local repo is to use an isolated IT repo but that is a more general issue.

it0127 uses the AntRun Plugin to check plugin class realms for multiple instances of the same plugin in the reactor.

The original document

* Instructions
Running the following from the top-level directory builds a distributable:
----
mvn install
----
If you wish to also run the integration tests themselves:
----
mvn -Prun-its install
----
This command can also be run from the core-integration-tests directory if the prerequisite artifacts have already been
installed or deployed.
* Reusing the suite
The suite is bundled up as a JAR containing all the tests and resources. All artifacts are now versioned according to the
version of Maven they are testing (currently, 2.1-SNAPSHOT), though it can be run against older versions as the verifier
will detect and omit tests that require the newer version of Maven to pass.
* Outstanding Issues
The top things that could be done:
1) The issues that would be most helpful that could be tackled on a piecewise basis by many would be to take plugin
specific ITs out of the ITs. There are many in there for the surefire plugin so while you're doing that you can look
at it. Piecewise but probably totally simple because you have to replace it with an IT that actually tests what it
was testing. A lot of time I have had to make a new IT plugin flavour.
2) The next issue of importance would be to collect all the in IT plugin plugins, invokers and verifiers and align all
these.
3) Once 2) is done then we wire the embedder option into the resulting invoker.
4) Proper isolation. The tests currently pick up your Maven settings file and current local repository. A clean local
repo can be used but it would result in a lot of unnecessary artifact retrieval. This fails in a locked down
environment (as additional repositories declared in IT 92, 94 and 120 are ignored). It also causes other risks.
A possible solution is to construct a repository artifact (using a POM with the dependency plugin to create an
assembly) that represents everything used by the ITs, then to have the setUp lay that out as a remote repo and use a
controlled settings.xml that uses a clean local repository, and mirrors central to that remote repository.
5) The support artifacts are currently deployed to the central repository, meaning they can get out of sync with those
in SVN (unless they are assumed to have been 'released'). After solving (4), these could be injected into the
constructed repository instead.
6) It's not obvious how to run them from and IDE and that's where I've found it to be most convenient to run them.
In particular, the resources directory is treated as test sources, which is not the case as each are projects
7) it0119 places artifacts in the o.a.m.plugins and o.c.mojo group IDs to test plugin prefix order instead of using a
replacement settings file and subgroups of o.a.m.its as it should
Other issues:
- [ ] An IT should be completely self-contained so that the problem
can be understood by looking in one place, in one Maven
project.
- [ ] We should be able to create an Archetype so that users can
easily create ITs for us. The is not completed but we do have the
core-integration-test-sample directory with has a sample I
offered to users.
- [ ] We should be able to easily integrate the IT into a larger
run where we can use forked or embedded execution.
- [ ] We should create Archetypes for all categories of problems so
that anyone can generate tests cases for us. Then there is so
much that we can do in terms of automating this process of
checking tests for quality along with the patches.
- [ ] automate the testing of ITs submitted by users
- [ ] Each IT should have its own repository if it needs resources
from repository. We can't mess with a users repository when
testing.
- [ ] We need to have a file system based remote repository for
testing
- [ ] We need a primary run that can done entirely offline to simply test
the guts of Maven from a baseline, then a secondary run possibly using
the exact same repository except served via different means like http,
ftp, scp which would allow us to find all the holes in the transport
mechanisms.
- [ ] We need to standardize on integration testing in general. We
have people going all over the place and it's a disaster.
- [ ] We have too many IT plugins (3)
- [ ] We have too many invokers (5)
- [ ] We have too many verifiers (3)
- [ ] The ITs should run nicely from an IDE. Solution: this does
work but requires that you run mvn clean
resources:testResources first as the IDE doesn't know how to
set that up. Needs to be fully fixed. But it is much nicer
running this stuff in your IDE.
- [-] Problems with ITs
- [ ] it0006 is an integration test for the verifier plugin.
- [ ] it0014 uses the compiler plugin to test plugin configuration.
- [ ] it0016 is an integration test for the WAR plugin.
- [ ] it0017 is an integration test for the EJB plugin.
- [ ] it0018 uses real dependencies to test artifact resolution.
- [ ] it0020 tests beanshell mojo support.
- [ ] it0024 uses the compiler plugin to test mojo configuration.
- [ ] it0028 uses the compiler plugin to test mojo configuration.
- [ ] it0029 uses the compiler plugin to test for pluginManagement
injection of plugin configuration.
- [ ] it0033 is an integration test for the EAR plugin.
- [ ] it0043 uses the help plugin to look at the state of the final
POM, we should have this built into Maven for testing.
- [ ] it0047 uses plexus-container-default for testing.
- [ ] it0048 uses the surefire plugin to test default value
population for mojo parameters.
- [ ] it0050 is an integration test for the surefire plugin.
- [ ] it0051 is an integration test for the release plugin.
- [ ] it0052 is an integration test for the release plugin.
- [ ] it0054 is an integration test for the resources plugin.
- [ ] it0055 is an integration test for the compiler plugin.
- [ ] it0056 uses the compiler plugin to test multiple executions.
- [ ] it0060 uses the compiler plugin to test aggregation of list
configuration items when using 'combine.children=append'
attribute.
- [ ] it0063 tests JDK 1.4.2 specifics.
- [ ] it0068 uses the modello plugin to test repository
accumulation (i'm not sure what that means, John?)
- [ ] it0069 uses classworlds dependency to test offline mode.
- [ ] it0070 is an integration test for the RAR plugin.
- [ ] it0074 uses the compiler plugin to test mojo configuration.
- [ ] it0076 uses the WAR plugin to test pluginManagement.
- [ ] it0078 uses the compiler plugin to test pluginManagement.
- [ ] it0079 uses the source plugin to test that attached artifacts
have the same build number as the primary artifact.
- [ ] it0080 uses the WAR plugin to test an artifact handler that
specifies no contribution to transitive dependencies. if the
behavior of this handler changed the test would break.
- [ ] it0081 uses production dependency of wagon as a dependency
- [ ] it0083 uses the WAR plugin to test an artifact handler that
the WAR artifact handler currently behaves like
- [ ] it0086 uses production dependency of bsh to test classloading
- [ ] it0087 uses prodcution dependency of commons-logging to test
classloading
- [ ] it0089 is an integration test for the checkstyle plugin,
and places an artifact in the wrong group ID
- [x] it0094 has a test that attempts to access a protected field
in a ClassRealm
- [ ] it0095 uses the help and verifier plugins to test URL
calculation
- [ ] it0100 uses the antrun plugin to make sure
${parent.artifactId} resolves correctly
- [ ] it0102 uses the help and antrun plugins to test profile
activation
- [ ] it0104 uses the surefire plugin to test interpolation
- [ ] it0105 is an integration test for the resources plugin
- [ ] artifactIds should be aligned with directories